Works for me

Although I attend a Baptist church, I’m probably a Calvinist. I’ve got a Puritan heart. Not that I’m pure, mind ye. Just that I take my Reformation neat, none of that proto-Catholic stuff of the Anglicans who call themselves Protestants. How do I know I’m a son of the Reformation, a Puritan, albeit not a very good one?

Five solas, friends. Every now and again I trot them out and test myself to see if they still make sense. To me, if not to thee. Can tell I’ve been reading my 1599 Geneva Bible, eh?

Those solas are, of course:

Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone as the source of God’s revelation and commandments

Solus Christus – Christ alone; no priests or other mediators

Sola Gratia – through God’s grace alone are we saved

Sola Fide – through faith alone may God’s grace work in us; works are useless

Soli Deo Gloria – all glory and honor to God, and only God.

These work for me. I’ve not found a better summary of the foundations for my faith.

As for predestination, that also makes sense to me. After all, if God is omniscient and omnipotent (required for a belief in God, the actual He Who Is, as against weak sissy gods of the Unitarians and some other so-called liberal denominations), then he knows from before time whom he shall elect to save through his son Jesus Christ.

To assume that something we call “free will” can thwart the will of God is, well, interesting. Soli Deo Gloria. Glory not to me, not to thee. To God. Sit back, learn the Gospel, and let God work in you.

Or not. But never give up; God’s grace, if it comes to us, can not be resisted by mere men. And you will know, even if it is on your deathbed.